I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of a cynic.
I tend to get cynical.
And it seems to get worse, as we head into this season.
I watch Christmas specials on TV, which speak the “true meaning of Christmas”, while preaching buy, buy, buy through their commercials.
And it drives me nuts. And it seems I break, as I get to the point where all I have is a shred of hope, and even that begins to dwindle.
Today, I had my breakfast bought for me, by a stranger. I was sitting in a restaurant, eating a pancake, when the waitress came and told me the lady at the booth next to me, picked up my ticket.
She was a friend of my parents, but I didn’t know her.
Later, I went collecting bell-ringing buckets for the Salvation Army, which my father organizes in our city. I was amazed at the amount of love that the people of our community showed, as I counted the hundreds of dollars that people dropped in the buckets.
I know these two events can’t overcome decades of cynicism and negativity, nor will it change my attitude completely. But it certainly helps. I think my shred of hope is slowly repairing.